<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Psychology and chronic illness',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'Written in <span title="Introduction to Health Psychology (previously known as Introduction to Human Psychology)">PSYC 1111</span> by <a href="https://y.st./">Alexand(er|ra) Yst</a>, finalised on 2018-10-17',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2018',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<p>
	Psychology plays a big part in both the onset of and recovery from chronic illness.
	For this essay, I&apos;ll mainly focus on obesity, as it&apos;s played a big role in my life, so it&apos;s the chronic illness I&apos;m most familiar with.
	However, these same arguments apply to other chronic illnesses as well.
</p>
<h2>Socialising</h2>
<p>
	Many of the ways that psychological factors lead to chronic illness boil down to lifestyle decisions.
	If you live way that puts a heave emphasis on food, you&apos;re likely to develop obesity.
	Many people use food as a way to bring people together.
	You can see this at all sorts of social gatherings, such as family/class reunions, parties, and other social dos.
	While this is fine to an extent, sometimes it goes a bit too far.
	If someone - most likely a group, not an individual - were to get into their heads that having lots of tasty foods was a vital part of what held them together and was necessary for them to properly bond, they might serve lots of unhealthy foods to members of their group on a regular basis.
	I can most readily see this being a problem with families.
	If they all eat a hearty meal together every night, it could lead the whole family down the path of obesity.
</p>
<p>
	Another example of this is cigarettes.
	If a group gets together to smoke as their main social activity, this can lead to the health issues (Ogden, 2017) associated with having tar, cyanide, and fibreglass in one&apos;s lungs, as cigarettes contain all three of these things.
	If drinking is your main social activity, it can likewise lead to liver issues and alcoholism.
</p>
<h2>Coping mechanisms</h2>
<p>
	Many people engage in unhealthy behaviours as a coping mechanism for stress (Ogden, 2017).
	For me, this was the main reason for my obesity.
	I grew up in a broken home in which my parents were always fighting, my father couldn&apos;t be trusted, and my mother was over-controlling, vindictive, and constantly belittled her children and our way of looking at things.
	I&apos;ve developed two major vices from this environment, both of which I&apos;m struggling to correct.
	One of these vices is eating unhealthy foods.
	I&apos;ve been out of that environment for a couple years now, and I still struggle with the effects it&apos;s had on me.
	Depression caused by this environment also led me to feel drained and tired all the time.
	Needless to say, I didn&apos;t get much exercise.
	When I did find it in me to go out and do something though, I&apos;d be berated for what activity I&apos;d chosen, leading me further not to go out much.
	This issue cleared up pretty soon after my departure; my energy level has gone up drastically and I can get in whatever exercise I feel like (assuming I can fit it into my schedule) without judgement.
	However, while I was still living there, sitting around at home was pretty much the only way to get through the days.
</p>
<p>
	Drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol are also used as coping mechanisms with negative health effects (Ogden, 2017).
	They allow people a way to escape their problems instead of dealing with them, just as eating did for me, and they likewise have a harmful effect on the body.
</p>
<h2>State of mind</h2>
<p>
	Even just one&apos;s state of mind has an effect on one&apos;s health, even seemingly without actions carried out by the person experiencing it.
	Stress also leads to lack of sleep, which is harmful to the body in many ways.
</p>
<p>
	In particular, a study was carried out measuring the effects of gratitude on lowering depression, another chronic illness.
	Feeling thankful to someone seems to make one feel better, at least in part (Sirois &amp; Wood, 2017).
	It&apos;s no cure for depression, but it can help.
</p>
<h2>Compounding</h2>
<p>
	Symptoms can lead to further harm as well.
	As I said previously, my home environment left me feeling like a depressed lump with no energy.
	Psychological factors left me with the physical symptom of lethargy.
	However, the physical symptom of lethargy also led to a lack of exercise, which led to further problems.
	This lack of physical activity no doubt played a part in the obesity I&apos;m struggling now to recover from.
</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>
	There are a multitude of ways in which psychological factors play a part in chronic illness.
	For me, there was no way I could ever recover until the bulk of the psychologically-harmful factors were removed from my life.
	I still face a heavy and probably unhealthy level of stress in my daily life, but it&apos;s been cut down to a point that I&apos;m able to recover, at least to an extent.
	I can&apos;t say for sure how good my results will be just yet, but I&apos;ve made huge progress in overcoming my weight, and I&apos;ve seen measurable progress as recently as two days ago.
	While psychological factors lead to chronic illness in many cases, they&apos;re also the key to overcoming many types of chronic illness (Ogden, 2017).
	There&apos;s no overcoming some types of chronic illness, such as diabetes, but for others, such as obesity, it often begins with to correcting the underlying psychological factors that caused the problem to begin with.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		Ogden, J. (2017). The Psychology of Health and Illness: An Open Access Course. Retrieved from <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf"><code>https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf</code></a>
	</p>
	<p>
		Sirois, F. M., &amp; Wood, A. M. (2017). Gratitude uniquely predicts lower depression in chronic illness populations: A longitudinal study of inflammatory bowel disease and arthritis. Health Psychology, 36(2), 122. Retrieved from <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326164/mod_book/chapter/166805/U6%20Gratitude%20Permission%20OK.pdf"><code>https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326164/mod_book/chapter/166805/U6%20Gratitude%20Permission%20OK.pdf</code></a>
	</p>
</div>
END
);
